These restaurants are offering the tastiest Italian comfort foods across the region.
Northern Virginia is home to some of the most delicious Italian food, with eight Italian eateries featured in this year’s 50 Best Restaurants. From chicken parmigiana gnocchi to mixed-berry tiramisu, these Northern Virginia restaurants are serving up mouth-watering modern and traditional Italian cuisine.
Price Key: Entrées = $ 15 and under | $$ 16–25 | $$$ 26–40 | $$$$ 41 and over
As quickly as you can say “red sauce Italian,” most of us already know what our order will be. But while there’s nothing wrong with a craving for fried mozzarella or spaghetti and meatballs, it’s a pity not to take advantage of veteran chef Mike Cordero’s showmanship.
NoVA food obsessives likely already know about the housemade bucatini, spun tableside in a wheel of parmigiana. But since Carbonara’s debut last year, Cordero has continued to break new ground.
Where else will you find chicken parmigiana gnocchi? The Frankenstein of earthly delights features an enormous, flat chicken breast beneath a blanket of melted mozzarella. A server comes to the table and slowly eases a pile of airy gnocchi in vodka sauce on top of the breaded bird. You may only succeed in eating half, but that means more to love as leftovers.
This is one Italian destination where it’s best to keep an open mind and choose the chef’s latest edible innovation.
Eat This: Fritto misto, chicken parmigiana gnocchi, pistachio-ricotta dusted cake
You might find yourself trotting confused through an office building in search of Osteria Marzano. But stay the course, and you will be rewarded with an optimally seared, medium-rare filet mignon.
Atop its crisped edges is a raviolo of near-identical dimensions beneath shaved black truffle. Get out your steak knife. Cut in and the al dente pasta oozes with cheesy cacio e pepe sauce. You may be accustomed to it on pasta, but it’s even better on a tender steak. On the side, Parmesan-covered fries are made eminently moreish by a side of red-wine demi-glace.